Come like Shadows
by Liave Ekeli
Summary: Old ghost from the past does not stay hidden or buried, even if we think we've rid ourselves of them. Logan is forced by a world on the brink of war to seek out a ghost that he thought he had buried forever, but finds that old ghosts are hard to vanquish


**Disclaimer: **All the recognizable X-men characters are copyrighted to Marvel and their respective creators. No profit is being made from this piece of fiction, and no copyright infringement is in any way intended. Only one character, Kaye Rivers aka Hydra, is of my own creation, and therefore belongs to me.  
**Author's Note:** This is my very first attempt at a fanfic written in the X-men universe, so reviews would be greatly appreciated. This is also a fic that was imagined first as a one-shot, but, depending on what kind of feedback I get, it might grow to more chapters. So, bottom line, if you like what I've written, or if you think it sucks, leave a review and let me know. Know only that flames will be overlooked, ignored and trampled on by yours truly.  
Also it would serve you well to know that this is a sort of modified version of Logan from X-men movieverse, which essentially means a mix of movie- and comicverse. This is to provide an explanation for the fact that Logan does remember at least some aspects of his past. And finally, many thanks to my good friend Mia (known around here as Miasen, so go and check out her stories if this one didn't fill your X-men craving) for being my in-house X-men fanatic and for supplying my general motivation for finishing this.  
Ok, I'm done, now read!

* * *

The wind blew mercilessly through the city. Winter was largely supposed to be over, but the weather didn't give away much sign of that. With a sigh he pulled the collar of his jacket tighter up around him, in a vain effort to stop the wind from bringing the chill into his very bones. It was more of an automatic gesture than anything else, because he had almost stopped noticing the weather, where it was getting continuously worse, hopefully without any help from any of his fellow mutants. Instead his mind was elsewhere, focusing on what he was about to do. He was still not convinced that it was a good idea, because after all, he did know her. Or at least he had known her, back when the world was a very different place. Then he had known her well, but now… He was no longer sure of where he stood in relation to her, and it was this that bothered him the most. How could the Professor expect him to persuade her to come into a world that she had never been a part of as long as he had known her, a world she had never tried to find or cared to belong to? 

He had been surprised when her name had floated to the surface of conversation, and even more so when it turned out that she had a mutation. It was something she had never confided to him, something he had indeed suspected, but something she had never told him. He caught himself thinking that if she had, it might have preserved something of what they had, long ago.

The building that was the address he had been given looked like any other in a two mile radius. It bore the visible battle scars of its location, by no means an attractive part of the city, and the fact that it had stood there a while. When he opened the front door to enter, a wave of stale, dusty air met him, hitting him so hard that it almost was as if he had taken a physical blow in the ribs. The difference between the air in there, and the heavy, moist air that the rain had caused outside was almost indescribable, and for a minute or so it felt like he was breathing nothing but sand and dust.

The building seemed as deserted as he had been told it would be, but he still stood for a moment listening for any sound of life. He could not hear anything, and that put him instantly on his guard. Slowly, he moved up the stairs, floor by floor, sometimes stopping to listen for any new sound. So far, the only thing he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, and the beating of his own heart. When he had walked the stairs almost to the very top of the building, meeting no form of intelligent life, his mind started to question the validity of his mission. Had the Professor sent him on a wild goose chase? Although it seemed very improbable, the Professor not the sort of person to bother with a task without some sort of purpose, Logan held it as a possibility when the last door down the corridor, farthest from where he stood, suddenly creaked open. Then every thought of being sent to a dead end abandoned him, only to leave him in full alert mode. The room on the inside of the door was completely dark, but his other senses told him that there was life in there. He could hear breathing, almost as steady as under perfectly normal circumstances, but not quite, and he could smell something, or rather…someone. A pleasant smell reached him, the smell of the world after a shower of rain, and a stark contrast to the environment he now found himself in.

Step by step he walked down the corridor, towards the open door. Stopping only for a second before taking the final step into the darkness on the inside, he entered the apartment. In the weak light shining through the windows from the city outside, he could see the contours of what could only be described as a normal apartment. A sofa stood slightly to his left, a coffee table in front of it. In a corner a comfortable looking chair stood, and around it was scattered books of all shapes and sizes. From where he stood he could see two other doorways, leading to what were probably a kitchen and a bedroom.

Suddenly he heard the rustling sound of motion, and he spun around grasping around the darkness in front of him. His hands found warm flesh, and he pulled the shadowed form towards him, twisting it, trying to find a feature that could identify it for him. What he found was a very familiar pair of eyes, eyes that had not changed, looking at him through the darkness. He stared into them, and for a split second they stared back, before a sharp pain in one of his shins made him loosen his grip. The shadow escaped and fled across the room. Before he could follow he was blinded by a sharp light.

When his eyes had gotten accustomed to the new light source, he saw her clearly, for the first time in the better part of a century. She stood as if frozen by the wall next to the light switch, looking at him with eyes that exchanged between looks of fear and surprise. He could do nothing but stare back, and for a while they both seemed to be petrified. Then, her voice, in nothing more than a whisper, spoke his name in wonder, as if it had been lost to her for ages and only now rediscovered.  
"Logan…?"

He didn't answer at first. Not because of a wish to be rude, but because he was busy taking in the sight of her. She looked almost exactly like the last time he had laid his eyes on her, the long black hair still the same, the ice blue eyes likewise. The rest of her body no different than he could remember, where it curved and straightened underneath her clothes. She had aged, but her body bore little marks of that, it was her eyes that gave the passed years away…But, the wisdom of those years suited her, and her eyes still shimmered and sparkled like the sea on a sunny day.

It seemed like she had gotten her bearings again now, and she stepped closer, reaching out with slender fingers, tracing the outlines of his face, as if to check that he was real and not an apparition of some sort. Her touch came as a surprise to him, but a pleasant one, which brought back memories, some good and some bad from times past. He thought that the two of them seemed destined to meet only in times of war, and he lamented the fact that this had been the case, wondering what would have happened if fate, if there was such a thing, had decided to play their cards differently. Their eyes met, and she seemed to snap out of a trance, taking a quick step away from him, and the look of fear came back in her eyes. He saw this, and felt a sudden irresistible urge to calm her, to bring her closer again.  
"It's alright, Kaye…it_ i__s_ me," he said, as softly as he could manage. It made most of the fear disappear from her eyes, but instead it was replaced by a growing skepticism towards him. Her voice was louder now, more demanding, but it still trembled in a fashion that gave away some insecurity in how to react to the situation.  
"What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

The sudden change in tone caught him off guard for a moment, and before he really thought it over, he had bit back;  
"How 'bout a 'nice to see you again, it's been a long time'?!? The second I enter the room you try to bite my head off!"  
He needed not wait long for the reply.  
" I try to bite your head off?!? Well, what the hell did you expect? I haven't seen you for god knows how long, I had no idea that you were still alive, and now you burst into my apartment thinking I would greet you like not even a day had passed. Well, I'm sorry, but that's just…"

Her voice trailed off, seeing his calming hand gesture, both hands up with palms outward, towards her. Seeing her calming down, he spoke again.  
"Hey…hey, it wasn't…I didn't mean it like that. Ok? I'm sorry, I just…"  
She shrugged, like she had done so many times before, and her voice lowered again to a whisper.  
"Never mind… Why are you here, Logan? And don't give me the 'I just wanted to see you again' routine. You're too late for that."She managed a smile, and cocked her head slightly to one side in an almost mischievous way.

"Alright, I didn't just come to see you again… I came because I wanted to see that you were safe. We're at the start of a war…"  
"I know that. I've survived two World Wars, Logan, without needing your protection. Why should I need it now?"  
"Because this is not only a war among humans any more, Kaye. There are people like us involved here, some with more powers than either of us could ever imagine… We need to stand together now, if we're going to survive. I want you to survive, Kaye…"  
"_People like us_, Logan? What are you talking about?"  
Even from a few steps away she could see his eyes flare with something powerful, something intense, but still something she could not put a name on. His voice, however, was still calm.  
"Mutants, Kaye. Some of them more powerful than you or I could ever imagine."

Unwillingly, she felt her body freeze, much in the same way as it had done when her eyes had first seen him for over sixty years.  
_How does he know?_ She thought bewildered; for she was only to sure that she had never told him. It had been a secret she had kept from all the world around her, including him. Eventually she managed to whisper;  
"How do you know?"  
He shrugged, in a fashion that suggested that what they were discussing was nothing more important than yesterday's weather. Seeing the nonchalant attitude made her feel like marching over to him and slap him across the face, but she thought better of it. He had apparently not changed much in the decades that had passed, for when he answered her, he let out a short laugh, more sarcastic than humorous, sounding like a dog barking.  
"I have friends, Kaye. They tell me things."  
There was a smile on his face, only it wasn't really a smile, but more of a smirk. For her it was the famous straw that broke the donkey's back. That arrogant remark made her take the three steps that were between them, only to get the satisfaction of slapping that smirk off his face. Her hand hurt like hell when she pulled back, and the force she had put into it had almost caused blood to spill from under her fingernails.  
"I have friends too, Logan," she spat "and they don't know my secrets!"

"That hurt, you know," he said, indignation in every syllable uttered.  
"Good, because you had that one coming, you arrogant son of a bitch!" she bit at him through clenched teeth.The expression on his face changed instantly to a beginning rage, and he looked at her as if he had not thought her capable of saying anything like that.  
"Excuse me?"  
"I am not a puppet that you can control to suit your every whim, nor am I some bloody soldier that you can enlist to your noble cause. You leave in the cover of night, and sixty years later you come back because you need me to save your ass again. Well, you can forget it, Logan. You have no right to come here!"  
His voice was trembling with anger now, and he struggled to keep it calm enough to not wake the people sleeping in the next building. "Now you listen to me! First of all, you have never saved my ass, and second, I didn't come here just to hear you insult me. You didn't even bother to change the sheets, did you, before you let him into your bed?"  
"That's my husband you're talking about, something you, by the way, never expressed any interest in being! You left, and that without saying a word, so yes, I married him! He loved me, something that I seriously doubt that you ever did."  
That hurt, though he did not want to admit it, not even to himself.  
"I came here on behalf of someone else to ask for your help, but believe me, I have better things to do than stand here and take this from you. So, I'm going to ask you again, will you help us, or not?

The nerve he had to ask her something like that! Furious that he would even try, she picked up the first thing she could get her hands on, which turned out to be a large, smooth, black piece of volcanic rock that sat on her desk for decoration, and hurled it straight at him. He ducked, but cursed wildly, shouting something that implied that she had lost every ounce of sense she had. She felt the exact opposite.  
"Hell no! I wouldn't help you even if it meant stopping Armageddon. Now, you get your chauvinistic ass out of my home, or I will make sure that there's nothing left of it!"

He needed no further invitation, but turned on his heel and headed back the way he had come. Still foaming with rage she opened her desk drawer, looking for something that might speed his leaving. She found something and threw it after him, the same way she had the stone. She did not follow to see if it had hit its mark.

Racing down the stairs and out onto the street before slowing into a fast pace, his rage ran hot inside him, and he let it, occasionally lashing out at lamp posts or trees, only to lash out at something. While doing that he muttered angrily under his breath, the people who passed by him only hearing enough to send him a quizzical look. One, however, a man in his forties, was unfortunate enough to look a second too long, making Logan stare back and spit a "What are you looking at?" through gritted teeth. The look on the man's face changed quickly from curiosity to horror, and he only pointed vaguely at a spot near Logan's shoulder before he hurried off. Bewildered, Logan looked where the man had pointed, only to find the shaft of a knife sticking up from his right shoulder. Cursing, he pulled it out with a swift move, and looked at it. That bloody woman had thrown a knife at him!

He was about to turn around and go back, just to beat some sense into her, planning to throw the knife away on his way back, when he saw something that made him stop. He recognized it, the etchings on the blade, the leather and metal workings on the shaft. The knife had belonged to him ages ago, and he had given it to her for her own protection. That it should someday be used against him had never crossed his mind. Instead he thought about how she had kept the thing all these years, and he noticed that some of his anger faded away. But the Professor was still going to hear of this when he got back to the Mansion.

He got to the place where he had parked his motorbike, for once lent more or less willingly from Scott for the occasion. Still fuming he kickstarted it and enjoyed the roar of the engine in his ears. Luckily for him, and for any pedestrians he might have encountered, the weather and the darkness had made the streets close to abandoned, and so there was not much of a challenge presented in navigating through them. Yet, the broad freeway came as a welcome surprise, and he gave the bike more throttle, taking a deep breath to pull in the smell of freedom that only an open road could give. Slowly, he felt his rage spread to the wind, but knew full well that when he stepped into the Professors office it would come again, as strong as always.

The Mansion came into view in front of him, most of its windows dark because of the hour, but the light still shining from some, giving the whole Mansion a ghostly glow. Logan knew where he was going, and noticed, half expected, that the light in the Professor's office was still on. Meaning that, most likely, Charles Xavier would be waiting for him.

Navigating the dark hallways half on familiarity, half depending on his senses, he found his way to the office of Professor Xavier, and felt a spark of the rage he now felt against Kaye ignite and grow on the way. He knew it would happen, but still he despised it when his rage started to take control over him. Sometimes it could be helpful, true enough, but he sometimes questioned if the help it gave him was worth the sacrifices it had forced him to make through the years. He had lost count of all the people he had hurt, all the people that he had driven away, some of whom he would have liked to stay close. Kaye was somewhere on the border of between those two. He knew that he had hurt her, more than once. And there were times when he would have killed to keep her close to him, but he had yet to meet one individual who could find his red buttons and push them like Kaye Rivers could. Tonight she had done it again, which was the reason why his anger towards her had grown considerably once again, on his way from the garage and to the Professor's office.

"That-that _woman_ is madness personified!"Charles Xavier eyed the new arrival in his office with a calm look. He chose not to interrupt as the newcomer continued into a reverie, most of it concerning the sanity of the woman he had been sent to find. After a few minutes of incoherent babbling, the first wave of the storm had blown over, and he found the time right to speak.  
"I take it then, that you were not successful in bringing her to us?"  
"That woman hates my guts! Of course I wasn't successful. How the hell did you expect me to manage that with someone who hates my guts, huh?"  
"I know at least one in this house that, to use your words, hates your guts too. And yet, he's still here."  
Logan had begun pacing now, back and forth in front of the Professor's desk. He was exhibiting something between impatience and frustration, and it was as if one feeling always struggled to be more present than the other.  
"Scott's known me for about, what? A year, a year and a half? Kaye hasn't seen me for over sixty years, and the first time she sees me, she throws a knife at me. Compared to that, Scott's a fuckin' teddy bear!"

Charles Xavier saw the spectacle that now was Logan, and found it somewhat strange that a short encounter with one individual could have such a profound effect on the man. Not even the recent events, not even the death of a woman that he had claimed to love, had managed to bring about such a conflicting display of emotion. Outward he was raging, but inwards were a very different, but no less confusing, matter, even if Logan himself had difficulty seeing it.

"Calm yourself, Logan. There is time yet. And maybe we will not have to struggle so hard to sway her after all…"

The heavy oak door slammed shut behind him as he quickly made his way from the Professor's office, and through the darkened hallways of the mansion towards his own quarters. When yet another door slammed shut, and he found himself alone, and sheltered, at least for a while, from the world outside, he gave in to a final wave of rage. Finding the wretched knife that earlier that evening had implanted itself in his shoulder, he threw it into the nearest wall while letting out an animal scream of anger, frustration and hopelessness, watching with a feeling of final contentment as the knife sank through the wall leaving a mark of splinters in its wake.

When he woke up after yet another night of fitful sleep, the weather outside his window was so utterly different from what he had experienced the night before, that he first thought that the bleak spring sun was his first warning that he might be somewhere very far away from the Xavier mansion. It turned out, however, that he was almost exactly where he had laid down the night before, and the sound of hundreds of steps running to and from classrooms only added to the fact that he was no place else than he had been for approximately the last year.

Later that day he had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to help out in one of Storm's classes. His relief when the kids, in a collective effort, managed to persuade Storm that it was a good idea to go outside and enjoy the weather, was maybe a bit too apparent, because Storm sent him a look of reprimand when she spotted that his relief was at least as great as the kids'. He felt in no condition to try and teach anybody anything, his mind was still preoccupied with the events of the previous night. It was more thoughts of remorse now, than rage or anger. What had he really expected of her? Sixty years was a long time, enough time for the world to change several times over, even if it sometimes didn't seem like it changed at all.

He noticed, with some irritation, that some of the youngsters had thought it a fun thing to test if the ice that lay on one of the fountains in the courtyard was still solid. With even more irritation he noted that it would be impossible for him to grab a hold of the two that were now currently braving that ice without stepping on to said ice himself. Taking a step up onto the edge of the fountain, he called out to them to get their behinds back on solid ground. Not surprisingly, even to him, they had no intention of listening, or going back quietly. With one foot he braved the ice, testing if it would hold his weight. To his initial surprise it seemed to hold up rather well, and he took the step to full length, now with both legs on the white surface. Angrily he took two more steps towards the two young boys who were testing his patience, and only as he was about to take the third did he realize that the ice on which he was standing had other plans.

Even though he tried, he had no chance of keeping his footing, and it all went so fast that he didn't see exactly where it was all going until he had his entire body submerged in the murky water. Gasping for air his head emerged to the surface, waves of laughter coming towards him from every direction. Even Storm, who had watched the entire event with visible skepticism, had to smile at the sight of the dripping wet substitute teacher basking to get out of the water.

"Alright, who's responsible for this?"  
He had gotten out of the pool now, and the laughter had quieted down, but there were still quite a few sniggers audible, where all the students had gathered in a half-circle around their dripping wet teacher.  
"Logan…what makes you think anyone here is responsible? Its spring time, the ice isn't stable at this time of year. I would suggest that you show better judgment before you…"

The sound of Storm's voice disappeared into the background, because across the courtyard, standing at the main gate, was who he now understood was the source of his involuntary bath, simply because there could be no one else, no one else who smiled like that at seeing him soaking wet on a cold March morning. The light of the sun seemed to work in her favor more than the shadows. Her raven black hair shone in the light, in a fashion that made it seem almost dark blue in color. Her full length coat seemed to reflect the sunlight, making it shimmer like when the sun shines on water. She was smiling broadly in his direction, seeming to enjoy herself immensely.

Unaware of everyone else for a moment, he made his way over to her. Her smile did not vane, instead she merely remarked;  
"You're wet." in a humorous manner that half made him want to laugh, half made him want to slap her across the face.  
"You're here."Although he tried, he didn't manage to hide all the surprise from his voice. She cocked her head slightly to one side and smiled up at him.  
"Well spotted."He took another step closer, now being close enough to feel her breath on his skin.  
"What is it they say? Hell hath no fury…"Her smile was as enigmatic as when he had first seen it, and she seemed mildly amused by the spectacle she herself had helped cause.  
"Logan, you were never_ that_ good… You have no idea what kind of fury I'm capable of."  
And with that she brushed past him, and continued on towards the house.

Night had once again come upon the world when he saw her again. He was on his way back to his quarters after an exhausting round in the Danger Room, pearls of sweat still trickling down his face and his knuckles still sore from the repeated use of his claws. She stood there in the hallway, like a misplaced ivory statue, draped in a fabric that, like her coat, seemed to shimmer and float with her whenever she moved.  
"You lost or something?"  
She shook her head gently, sending some strands of her dark hair on a wild flight through the air. Now it was her turn to step closer, like he had done before.  
"I just wanted to say that…" she hesitated, "it was nice…to see you again, Logan."  
He finally had the chance to ask her a question that had been bugging him all day, and he took it.  
"How did you find me?"Now she smiled, a wide and yet enigmatic smile.  
"I have friends, Logan. They tell me things."  
He hadn't expected a more straightforward answer, least of all from her. He knew that she had eyes and ears in places that most had little contact with, and he realized that he had, perhaps, not been the most difficult individual to track down.

He reached out for her with one hand, letting his fingers caress her face, and for a moment it was as if they both held their breath, as one would do before taking the final step into something unknown. But as his fingers fastened their grip slightly, to bring her face towards him and her lips to his, she froze and pulled away from him.  
"Logan… No."  
It was said only as a whisper, but the effect it had could have suggested otherwise, for suddenly she had disappeared back into the shadows from which she had come, and slipped through his fingers once again.


End file.
